Zoroark: Rhododendron
by Grun
Summary: A healthy portion of Zoroark's beastly spirit, with a look at the dystopic Pokemon world for dessert. May contain mildly disturbing imagery. (Not in the Horror category for nothing; the best is yet to come.)
1. Acquired

I am a trainer named Hester. Zoroark is my only Pokemon. I will never love her.

She is ungainly, appalling, and repugnant; her type, the Dark type, reeks of death, decomposition, decay. I named her Rhododendron when she was a Zorua so that I wouldn't have to change her name when she evolved. Of course she'll evolve, I said. She's mine to use.

I have never loved her, and she has never loved me. That is how we can be partners. This world, you see, dripping as it is with words of proactivity and innocence, relies both willingly and unwillingly upon these brutal wild animals we call Pokemon. Without a Pokemon, you cannot leave your hometown; without a strong one, you cannot go far, and you cannot learn. Each town begins as an island - in which the lucky and powerful perhaps have a young rodent Pokemon - but when a trainer finally makes it to the top, they come home and share their knowledge of the outside world. No one has ever heard these words before, and know only the stories of the legends that shaped their world.

And yet, these people put their trust in these beasts.

As such, I depend on Rhododendron for money to pay for my board and keep. Rhododendron relies on me, because she has nowhere else to go. Humans do encroach so into the wild, after all, that the reclusive and feared do not last long.

When I was young, I was disobedient, for the sole reason that even then I saw how cruel it was that only the strongest trainers could learn about the world outside their village; and so almost every day I ventured beyond the fence into the woods. Despite what the adults always said, talking of fire monsters and water beasts that would tear you to pieces, I found the Pokemon of the woods completely neutral to me, and I to them. Even when I stayed for hours, asleep or reading, the Patrat would live as normal. Pidove would peer curiously, and maybe Lillipup would use Odor Sleuth over and over - as strange as I was compared to the lot of them - but neither party was ever a threat to the other. Some days I would go deeper, into the even darker forest, where it appeared a Munna might have been living. In the heart of these trees was a clearing. A single patch of light upon a hill. It was always still here, and nearly silent; not the stifling silence of the house and town, but a nice silence. I would climb up it barefoot, in a sundress half a size too big with my hair full of twigs and my hands covered in scratches, hanging on to the roots and vines that used this place to live. The top was not wide, but at least existent - a soft plateau; a good spot for laying, staring at the sky, and thinking about the world. The view revealed that the water was endless on almost all sides of the village, and in the evening, you could see the lights of a town far away... Regardless, here it was that I found Rhododendron.

Over the course of about ten days I had been hearing heavier footsteps, seeing larger eyes, than had I ever. Changes in the political and economic world were appearing and disappearing as they always had (in this unstable economy based almost entirely upon the ignorance of rookie trainers), and more often had I been seeing aircraft about, but none of these things, I thought, were related.

On a frosty autumn morning, when some leaves had turned but not fallen, the hill was now a necessary place to stay, to keep from getting a cold. I had awoken that morning feeling - for the first time - things really changing, although the outside world had never been able to matter to me, as little as I knew about it. The same as always, I put on a sweater and left without a word. My mother called "goodbye" from the kitchen, knowing full well where I was going and trusting that I would keep myself safe, though I always thought she was just blissfully ignorant. Through the same part of the fence, through the woods on the same trail, dodging the same Pidove nest... at the same hill. In the light was a beast that was the evilest I had ever seen, in its most vulnerable position. A Zoroark was giving birth, just on the edge of the clearing.

I could not tear my young eyes away - either from the sight of birth, or from the wretchedness of a creature I had never seen anything like before, I will never know. I scarcely dared to breathe - it looked as though it would swallow me whole if it saw me. Standing stiller than the trees, I watched and waited. Even if I had wanted to run, I could not have.

Within half an hour of stifled, obscene, straining howls it lay exhausted, catching its breath for just a moment, then tucking its child into its mane. The sun found them in grass and red leaves, and the way it rested was as peaceful as I had ever felt, and for a moment, I almost thought it beautiful. It took nearly a full minute for me to come back to reality and see what was happening before me.

A helicopter descended from the sky in the direction of its back, which faced the woods, and a man on a small and simple hovering platform emerged. While it should have run, its young Zorua was too weak to flee with it, and it could hardly run three-legged - so the Zoroark stood and made the most heinous screams I have heard to this day, slashing at any who came near it. In the end, less than a minute later, I watched it captured within an impossibly fortified crate, then being airlifted, then flying away, leaving me in its stunned silence. I could only stare - the Zorua, still damp, laid helplessly in the grass. It was almost pitiably vulnerable, in the same way as a demon trapped in a church.

Whatever possessed me, I hid it in my sweater and brought it home. That was how I became a Trainer.


	2. Learnt

As the first trainer of Aspertia besides Cheren, the area - all 2 households - was astir. I never paid attention to what they said, so much as wonder why I should endure all of this staring and questioning as though I was some rare object and not myself. They were happy for me, they said. I should leave home and start a journey like Cheren did, they said. So I did. With no money or belongings, and only a weak Zorua by me, I left. I didn't have a Poke Ball for it, but it didn't object, because it seemed to think I was its mother.

The furthest I had ever been from home brought cold winds, potholes, crabgrass, and Patrat - so many Patrat. They could smell Zorua with me, and I had no doubt that they wanted to see it, but it seemed too weak to face even them, who had lived here far longer than it had. If I lost, I would have to return home within half an hour of first leaving... And then they might call me weak, I thought, and call me back.

The longest hour in the history of the world went by, trudging through grass, dodging spooked Pidove, shooing Patrat away, before anything happened. Zorua, who had spent this time sleeping, wriggled out from my coat to land ungracefully in the mud. Facing me, it bowed and yipped, and made all those sorts of behaviors Cheren's Lillipup made with him: wagging, pushing against me with its front paws, using Tackle on my shoes, and whimpering. I must have really seemed to it that I was its mother; before long, I thought, this must be discontinued.

Continuing beside me, it would brush up against my leg or sit in front of me, offering grasses or flowers, which I would take and place gently in my bag, for if it was already dying, discarding it would be of no use. We moved slowly in the cold, and as this went on, Zorua's eagerness grew less and less, until it finally left me in peace - eyes on the ground, tail down. If I am truly free from the village, I thought, then why can't I be free of everything? Of others?

A wild Audino appeared then, jarring me away from my introspection and into my first real battle.

While bulky in size, Audino appeared an otherwise easy first battle. Wasn't this what they used in the Pokemon centers? It must, therefore, have little strength. While Zorua's evolved form had the claws to boast of, it seemed from its warnings, growling, and swiping the air that it could attack best using what claws it had.

Zorua used Scratch - over and over it used Scratch, now and then stopping to grimace at it, which seemed to startle the foe and stand dazed for a moment. Curiously, Audino could fight fairly well, growling and using Pound. Such a close match left me on edge; Zorua couldn't be exhausted already... Nor was it. Zorua's relative swiftness overcame Audino and left it fleeing, with Zorua out of breath and visibly weakened. It seemed to set all of these symptoms aside for the sake of cocking its head, looking back at me, and wagging hopefully. "What does it want?" I thought, before nodding to it and picking it up. It wouldn't do to let it wear out before the next town. If it wanted my approval, I would train it so.

It was evening before I reached Floccesy, and my lunch had worn off - so had Zorua's, if the noises from its stomach were any indication. With little clue as to where I would sleep or eat, the Pokemon Center seemed the safest place to go.

"Oh, hey, are you a new trainer?" The receptionist was feigning surprise pretty well. If she hadn't seen me before, of course I was new.

"Yeah. Can we sleep here?"

"Of course! That's what we're here for. Is your cute little Pokemon okay? I've never seen one like that before."

I felt almost smug when I began to realize that Zorua was rare - it had to be, the way its mother was captured. But cute? No. "I think it's fine..."

"It looks pretty beat up. Here, let me take care of it. We'll need it to be in its ball, though."

"I don't have one."

"Oh? Well that's easy to remedy. You'll need one if you want to really heal it. Sleep can't always fix everything and it's certainly time-consuming." She gave me two Poke Balls over the counter. "You two seem to get along, so why don't you try capturing it?"

I set Zorua down; it wagged slightly on eye contact. The first ball caught it.

"Alright, honey, you can keep that next ball for when you capture more Pokemon!"

I found out from the Pokemon Center that Zorua was female, growth level 3, would evolve eventually, and had a hardy nature. My mother sold flowers, and she had always tried to teach me the meanings of flowers - Camellia for graciousness, pink carnations for gratitude. It was then that I decided on a name for her: Rhodedendron.

"Beware".


End file.
